


rainwater

by passingknightly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MWPP, The Prank, a very gentle brand of hurt/comfort, some light werewolf angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 20:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passingknightly/pseuds/passingknightly
Summary: Remus's monthly transformation and his recovery afterwards had become much easier since his friends became Animagi. But when he woke up this time he knew that something had gone wrong.They weren’t there last night, Remus knew instinctively, and felt panic, icy and dreadful, infect his insides, driving the throbbing pain into the background. What had happened? Had Dumbledore found out? Had they all been expelled? Or had he, Remus, lost control?





	rainwater

**Author's Note:**

> I found this sitting on my laptop from 2011. I gave it a polish, cut the fat from some of the more purple prose, and here we are!
> 
> I read a lot of R/S around this time and never quite felt like I found my definitive version of The Prank, so I wrote my own. 
> 
> For pottermoosh, who encouraged me to post it here ♥

The world was silent and Remus Lupin lay still as his eyes flickered open, wrapped in the perfect motionlessness of the night. Small and bare, he knew the room immediately upon waking by the burning in his limbs and the harsh sting of recently opened and closed wounds. The ceiling was as high and arched as he remembered and dark shadows danced across the ancient stone above him. He could feel various magical pastes at work on his cuts and bites and knew his last transformation must have been worse than those he had grown accustomed to in the past thirteen months. A year or so ago it was not uncommon for him to sleep through the whole day after his transformation and wake up alone in the middle of the night. 

_“Your body needs time to repair itself, dear, and no wonder after what you go through every month. No, I must insist you stay the night. Don’t be ridiculous, Black, he’s in no fit state- Potter, which of the two of us is the qualified healer? Out! All three of you, or I shall report you to your head of house!”_

But now it was different, and Remus could feel in his bones that something had gone wrong. He was normally stiff upon waking up but now he felt stricken and he knew if he were to look down at his arms, he would see a myriad of self-inflicted bites and scratches covered in thick purple ointment. He could already feel it beginning to itch.

_“Tergum Balm. With infusion of Aconite, which is usually poisonous of course, so it wouldn’t be suitable for the other students, but apothecaries assume this is one of the reasons is works against cursed wounds, such as these. It should relieve the worst of the scarring. I had to add some lavender to it, or else it smells foul.”_

They weren’t there last night, Remus knew instinctively, and felt panic, icy and dreadful, infect his insides, driving the throbbing pain into the background. What had happened? Had Dumbledore found out? Had they all been expelled? Or had he, Remus, lost control? If he were to crawl down into the Shrieking Shack, would he find three lifeless bodies sprawled on the dusty floor? His stomach twisted with fear and nausea; it was Peter who came to his mind, a rat, broken upon the floorboards. Blood and guts and bone. Would he have returned to his human form when he died?

Remus was snapped out of his gruesome reverie by a noise. His senses were still a little too finely tuned after the previous night (everything was too sharp around him, the darkness was like a lifted veil, casting no challenge to his lupine eye sight) and he could hear someone creeping down the ward towards his door. He sat up and his back stung in silent protest but Remus had felt much worse and paid it no heed, keeping his eyes trained upon the door. It definitely wasn’t Madam Pomfrey, he knew, as he could hear the caution in the footsteps, the fear of being apprehended. James was Remus’s guess, as there was only a single pair of foot-falls and visiting him would be most like James, who could be surprisingly caring and caught Remus off guard by worrying quite a lot. Remus realised that James worried in a very different way to himself; Remus worried about tests and homework, about being disliked or his secret being discovered, which Remus considered to be the grey areas of worry, whereas James worried in black and white, about gravely serious things such as the impending war, or ridiculously trivial things, such as his hair or his broom’s tail twigs not being straight enough. 

When the door swung slowly, noiselessly, open, Remus momentarily thought his guess had been confirmed when he saw the empty doorway, but when the Cloak was pulled off it was not James beneath it. It was Sirius, and he looked as Remus had never seen before, (but as, Remus would think in years to come, a foreshadow of the man who would escape Azkaban) with grey eyes like rainwater.

As Sirius moved towards the bed, bundling the silvery material into his arms, Remus smelt the blood. On Sirius’s lower lip was what looked to Remus like quite a deep cut and the darkness of it made it look even worse against the pale of his face. 

“Your lip. How did you-” Remus began and his voice was hoarser than usual, painful and creaking as it rose up from his throat.

“Prongs,” said Sirius, sitting down on the spindly chair at Remus’s bedside. His forced smile was brittle until he winced, having split the skin of his torn lip back open. “Said I shouldn’t take it without asking,” he held up the Cloak, “said I shouldn’t assume- said I should let you rest. I think it was just an excuse so- well.”

“Well?” Remus repeated slowly, feeling utterly bemused, detached, like a stranger had come to sit beside his bed in the night. “Madam Pomfrey could fix that in a second, you know.”

“It’s ok, I deserve it,” said Sirius, who was watching Remus, almost in expectancy, but laced with something deeper like dread.

“For stealing the Cloak?” asked Remus, feeling like he was missing something. He must have seen Sirius steal James’s invisibility cloak at least ten times in the past year alone.

“No, for- you know. With Sniv- Snape.” A frown that was very familiar to Remus creased Sirius’s brow, it was the expression he wore whilst McGonagall decided upon how many points she would deduct for whichever misdemeanour Sirius had participated in. He frowned at Remus a lot in that way. Remus often seemed to catch him at it, such as once whilst he was helping himself to some of the Humbugs that no one else would touch at the Halloween feast. 

_“Moony, what exactly are those?” James had asked, noticing where Sirius’s attention had strayed. He was paused in the midst of himself to some pumpkin jelly, which wobbled precariously in midair on the spoon, halfway to his plate._

_“Mint humbugs,” Remus replied. “They’re a kind of muggle sweet. My mum used to buy them for me when she took me with her to the supermarket.”_

_“Super market?” said Peter, with laughter in his voice. “What’s so super about it?”_

_“It’s a reference to size. Supermarkets are where muggles buy all their food,” said Sirius, his attention shifting safely away from Remus. The three other boys had turned to stare at him._

_Sirius barked with laughter at the shocked expressions on their faces and James’s jelly fell into a bowl of rice pudding, making him swear so loudly that Nearly-headless Nick turned in his seat half-way down the table and frowned at them reprovingly._

_“Muggle studies,” Sirius said by way of explanation as he watched James trying to hide the orange lump in the pudding._

“You- c’mon Moony. I didn‘t- I’m sorry,” there was a tone of desperation in Sirius’s voice that brought back some of the panic that Remus had forgotten with the arrival of his unexpected visiter. 

“Sirius,” he said, trying desperately to keep his tone flat. “What is going on?”

“H-haven’t you been told?”

“Told what? I’ve only just woken up.”

The little colour that was still in Sirius’s face seemed to drain out of it. 

“I didn’t betray you, James said,” he croaked and then Remus knew that this was serious. He had never heard Sirius sound scared before, not really, but strangely it wasn’t that which alerted Remus to danger. It was when Sirius had said ’James’. Sirius and James would only revert to using each other’s given names when something had gone very wrong, or when they were so furious at each other that they forgot they were best friends. “I mean- I’m not trying to make up for it- for what I did- but he means it. He said sometimes I just fucking need to think before I fucking open my big fucking mouth.” It sounded like a James. James, who always swore like a sailor when he got worked up. Such as two years ago, when Snape had made one too many snide comments about Remus‘s (admittedly terrible) attempt at the Draught of Peace and James had pushed his way across the dungeon and threatened to jinx him senseless, or when Peter had had one of his rare but undeniable strokes of utter genius and suggested that they implant half a dozen of the new Dr. Filibuster’s Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks in the jugs bound for the Slytherin table at the start-of-term banquet.

Remus said nothing, simply waited for Sirius to elaborate.

“Snape,” said Sirius finally. “Snape. I- I told him.”

Remus froze. “You _what_?”

The strange, stiff composure that Sirius had been trapped in since he entered the room melted and he looked grief-stricken, appalled. He moved himself onto the edge of Remus’s bed and ended up half-sitting on Remus’s thigh. Remus hissed, pain shot through his leg where Sirius’s weight pressed down upon slowly closing wounds. 

“Sorry, God, I’m so sorry,” Sirius babbled, but didn’t move. “It’s not how you think, I swear. I didn’t mean to - I wasn’t thinking, like James said. It’s just Snape, you know what he’s like! He was going on about you - which I know you’re just going to say he just does it because I hate it and I know but the fact is I _do_ hate it - and I told him to shut his snivelling face, which you know how _he_ hates, so then he said he knew. He started dropping stupid hints and going on about silver bullets and he told me saw you, going down there - to the willow - to transform and I said if he was so sure then why didn’t he just press the big knot on the tree and find out…” Sirius’s voice trailed away. “I didn’t- I didn’t really think he would. I mean, not even he is that stupid, but apparently he is and. Rem- Moony? Are you ok?”

Remus looked up at him, into the rainwater eyes just inches from his own painfully unremarkable ones.

“Did I-” he started, struggling to keep the fear from his voice and complete a full sentence at the same time. “Is he - Snape - ok?”

“Well, he’s the same as always,” said Sirius, sensing he was reentering safe waters and allowing a small note of derision into his words. “Peter and I saw him, you know how we keep an eye out for when Pomfrey leaves, well we saw him sneak in and- and then I realised - all my fault. And so we were panicking, you know Wormtail when he panics, only bats can hear him and I didn’t know what to do and it was hideous, but then Prongs comes through the portrait hole, thank God, and we told him and he just sort of knew what to do. He told Peter and me to get Dumbledore and Pomfrey and he went off towards the willow. Apparently he was only just in time. Snape saw you, I think, round the corner. But James blasted you with Impedimenta, I think, and they got away.”

Remus nodded, flooded with relief and thank fuck for James Potter, but there was still one question left to ask.

“Did Dumbledore- are you- am I… are we?” 

“Expelled?” finished Sirius. “No. No, I mean I can’t remember how many points got taken away, sort of a blur, you know, but my guess is we might be in negative figures again.” Remus watched in wonder as Sirius had the nerve to smile, almost mischievously, but he could still see the underlying worry beneath.

“So that’s why James punched you?”

“Pretty much,” Sirius said, as though he’s just finished a great story of grand adventure and chivalry. “Budge over, will you?” Remus obliged, glad to finally have some relief for his leg.

Sirius slipped an arm around Remus’s neck once he’d settled himself comfortably down beside him on the small bed. Remus could still smell the blood and worry, stale like sweat, emanating from him, along with a faint aroma of nausea as if Sirius had thrown up around twelve hours ago. 

“So,” said Sirius, and the arm coiled around Remus tensed slightly, though he tried to carry on his display of bravado. “What’s my sentence? Am I to be put down?” Remus craned his head to look at Sirius again and now, slightly light-headed with relief and with the aid of the first of the sun’s beams creeping in through the high window, he saw how tired Sirius looked, worn around the eyes and strained, as though he’d carried a great weight around with him all day, waiting for Remus to wake up.

“Like the mangy dog that you are,” Remus murmured and let his head droop back against Sirius’s arm. His eyes slipped shut. “I’ll let Prongs see to it.”

He didn’t need to open his eyes to feel Sirius’s grin hitting his face, brighter than the early morning light, and his soft huffs of breath reached Remus’s throat. 

“Such cruel displays of capital punishment, wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, Moony.”

(Remus wouldn’t either, until some nearly twenty years later, confronted by a lying rat in a place he had once known so well.)

His reply died on his lips as he slipped slowly back in unconsciousness. The last thing he registered was what felt strangely like lips pressed against his brow, but he was so tired and so relieved in that moment, he was practically delirious. He must have imagined it.

***

Some two hours later Madam Pomfrey would bustle into the room and purse her lips at the sight of two sleeping teenage boys spilling slightly off the edges of the small bed and would swear that, although she’d thrown Black out last night, she hadn’t seen anybody come in.


End file.
